Arrowhead: Signal - A $600 Sci-Fi Short Film

Having the opportunity to work on Rubidium Wu's The Silent City I've become very intrigued inspired by all the great independent film makers out there who are taking full advantage of accessible technologies like the Canon 5D Mark II. The latest of which, Arrowhead: Signal, by writer/directed Jesse O'Brien was made for a ballpark figure of 600 bucks. If you don't include the T4i, 5DMII setup and 3 years of invested time they appear to have used. But still how many of us have a kick ass, video capable DSLR ready to rock? When not doing client work I find myself sitting on the couch while my 5D Mark III sits on it's shelf and I can't help but watch shorts like this and think, "How much potential am I wasting?"... How much potential are you wasting?

"A $600 short sci-fi film based on the upcoming feature film, Arrowhead, about a mercenary stranded alone on a desert planet, awaiting rescue. Please donate on Pozible and support its creation!"

7 Comments

Excellent effort by arrowhead. And what a profound point you make, Kenn. "How much potential are you wasting", indeed?

My excuse is insecurity, the only talent of mine I despise. Sure I may have a 7D, but insecurity kicks in and I tell myself "but you don't have lights, you don't have the best audio, and whatever you present, the people online who may have more or "better" gear will call your work mediocre because you are insufficient." And that is so terrible. We are all sufficient, and we are at a great time where if we do have stories to tell, there is nothing we don't have.

Impressive work! I really liked the visuals and the overall atmosphere. Kudos to the team! If you enjoy these kind of science fiction shorts, I invite you to watch the one I released 2 days ago: THE DEVICE. It's a 3min sci-fi short with a cool twist in the end! Made with a zero budget but with motivated friends. So far, it got great reviews. Check it out :https://vimeo.com/50309815

I really enjoyed this short. I don't quite understand how its labeled as having a $600 budget. Either everyone worked for free or the $600 is some random money they spent on snacks or something....doesn't make sense at all. Breaking it down (if people were charging per hour to work), the music scoring alone would cost over $2000, the filming probably took around 60 hours, the editing had to have taken another 100 hours and the set (not the CG stuff) that was made cost money.....probably at least a few thousand. So, with that said, how in the world do they say this was a $600 film? That number just seems too small to be real and too big to be nothing. I could understand if it was a $0 budget and nobody got paid BUT who got the measly $600 when everyone else worked hundreds of hours to get this finished?

I made a feature film for $20k that went around to festivals, won awards, etc. All that said, we didn't pay anyone. I did the editing, vfx, sound editing, the actors donated their time, my brother did the music. Etc. That said, our budget was still $20k. Most of that went to food/location fees. I'm guessing that was probably the case here.